If there were a draft right now I would move to Canada rather than defend some of these sorry-assed people who call themselves Americans, so disgusted am I with what I witnessed this afternoon.
So, I’m heading over to the beach for the afternoon sail when traffic stops on the Bayway. Now, the bridge isn’t up, doesn’t appear to be going up, and I can’t quite see why we need to stop, but whatever. Stuck over Boca Ciega Bay on a day like today… there are worse places to get stuck. It’s only after I’ve been at a dead stop for about five or ten minutes that I get curious and step out of the car just in time to see two or three people dragging a guy out of his car, get him on the pavement, rip open his shirt and start CPR. When I learned CPR they told us that you should always let the rescuers know that you know it as well, because once you start CPR you cannot stop until professional rescuers arrive and, well, you get tired. So I run over and tell them I know CPR if they want assistance.
That’s when a guy behind me says, “Good, good for you, why don’t we get the professionals in here and clear a fucking lane?” and, at first, I think he means to let the ambulance through. Turns out that was a little too optimistic about the human condition, because right on my heels is a woman who says, “I’m a nurse, can I help?”, whereupon this waste of carbon starts swearing about needing to get his car through and we should all just stop and wait for rescuers so we can clear a path for him to get his car through.
Uh-huh, you read that right. Fat tourist (checked the license plate, he was) wants trained rescuers to stop CPR and move the fibrillating man off to the side of the road so he can get his polo shirt and khaki Boston ass over the bridge. Funny, too, cause his silhouette indicated to me that he may, in the very near future, need some sort of medical assistance himself, so you would think he’d be more understanding. I diverge, though. Back to our regularly scheduled programming…
“Hey, show a little respect!” another guy says, which apparently upsets Fat Tourist even more, because he now starts calling that guy names and–I am SO not making this up–next thing you know they’re swinging at each other over the two people giving the dying guy CPR on the Bayway.
I threw up a little in my mouth just remembering this.
Of course, the paramedics showed up, Fat Boston Man took off (which makes me wonder why he was so damn concerned about it before) and three passers-by (two nurses and a random guy from Guam) helped the paramedics as they worked on this guy for a few minutes.
Here’s what’s messed up: most of the people who got out of their cars wanted to help, from giving CPR to holding the IV bag once the pros got there. That part is all very touching, but then there’s this guy, this interminable asshole, this absolute jerkoff of a human being who just wanted to get his car through, and then I find myself looking down at Mr.-Almost-Dead and wondering if, had the situations been reversed, he would be the guy giving mouth to mouth or the utter waste of sperm and egg and life and freedom who didn’t care if another human being died as long as he could get over the bridge.
THAT is almost enough to make me want to worry about nothing else but getting my own car through.
Almost.
